Encounter
by Riona
Summary: It's amazing how much having company can change the way we think. Silent Hill 2 and Doctor Who crossover. James Sunderland and Captain Jack Harkness.


...I've written two Doctor Who/Silent Hill fics now. The two of them are the longest works of fanfiction I've ever completed.

Something is clearly _seriously wrong_ with me.

Anyway! As it's a slightly unusual combination, I'm not sure how many people will be familiar with both fandoms, but so long as you know _Silent Hill 2_ you should be okay. If you don't, this contains spoilers, so you shouldn't read it.

**Encounter**

There is somebody leaning against the railing.

It's impossible. He knows that it's impossible, but – but he's got the letter and he's come this far, and there's nobody else here, and it has to be her, it _has_ to be –

"Mary?" he asks, hardly daring to believe it.

The person turns around. It's a young man, dark-haired and handsome. He looks nothing like Mary. James thinks he must be going mad, seeing her everywhere. "...no, you're not. I'm sorry."

"Mary?" the stranger asks, grinning.

"My..." Nothing like her. How did he...? "My late wife."

The smile fades. "I'm sorry to hear that," he says sincerely. "I wish I could have been her for you." He steps forward, holds out a hand. "Captain Jack Harkness."

James stares at the hand for a moment, as if unsure of what to do with it, and then takes it. "James Sunderland. Thank you," he adds, as his mind finally processes Jack's sympathy. He's been feeling slow lately, his senses dulled. He's able to _move_, able to run and fight and walk carefully, every muscle in his body tense with fear, listening for the crackle of static; but he doesn't seem able to hold a proper conversation, doesn't seem able to _think_ clearly.

Perhaps it's just the people he's been trying to converse with.

Jack nods understandingly (you don't understand, you can't _possibly_ understand), looking into James' eyes for a moment before glancing away. "I've lost someone myself. Two people," he corrects himself. "I thought they might have been here, but I haven't been able to find them." He pauses. "I guess it's not the same."

_Maybe it is,_ James thinks. "No, I – I hope you find them."

"Thank you." A pause. "So, what brings you here?" He leans back against the iron railing, gestures at the world around them. "Not exactly the best place for a vacation."

James can't remember for a moment why he _is_ there, and when he does he is shocked that he could have possibly forgotten, even for a few seconds. "I'm – looking for someone."

"Mary?" Jack asks.

James looks up at him, startled. "That's right. How did you – ?"

"You called me Mary earlier. You sounded like you actually expected her to be here." Jack isn't looking at him; he's half-turned, staring out over the lake. "And death... you can't always be sure that someone's..." He hesitates. "I lost my friends because they thought that I had died. I _was_ dead, I think, but I came back to life. But they couldn't have known that. They'd have come to get me if they knew."

Jack seems to be talking to himself more than to James now, trying to convince himself that his words are true. James pities him for that.

"I got a letter," he says, quietly. "From Mary. She said she'd be here."

Jack turns, one hand still on the railing. "The park?"

"I don't know." For a moment he hesitates, wondering whether to show him the letter, but in the end he decides not to. It's too personal. "She said she'd meet me in our 'special place'."

"Your special place?" There's a flicker of something – perhaps a grin – that he quickly suppresses. "Do you have any idea where that might be?"

James looks past him, across the lake. "I thought I did, but..." He trails off, squinting through the fog. "It might be the Lakeview Hotel. We stayed there three years ago." Momentary confusion flashes across his face. "No, that can't be right. It must have been earlier than that."

Jack watches him in silence, concerned.

"I tried to get here earlier, but all the roads were blocked off, and the monsters – "

"You're being attacked?" Jack asks instantly.

"Aren't you?"

"Not yet." He's – impossibly – smiling. "But if there are monsters around here, that means my friends are probably going to show up."

_We'll see if you're still willing to look for them once you've met that red pyramid thing, _James thinks with a certain vindictiveness, and then is surprised by his own thoughts. Why does he assume that Jack's resolve would be less than his own? James knows that he would go through Hell and back for Mary – he is, in a way; heading deeper and deeper into this Hell for the slightest chance that she might still be alive. It's ridiculous. It's ridiculous, and he knows it, but he also knows that he cannot turn back.

They stand together in silence for some time, and then James nods towards the hotel – at least, he thinks that it's the direction of the hotel (the fog is so _thick_). "I should go. Good luck." He begins to walk away.

"Wait." James stops, turns. Jack is looking at him shrewdly. "Didn't you say that there were monsters around here?"

"They're everywhere. You didn't see them?"

"And they attack you?" He pushes off the railing and moves to stand beside him.

"Yeah." They begin to walk.

"Do you have any means of defending yourself?"

A pause. "I've got a handgun. Some bullets. It works, only you have to kick them once they're down, otherwise they come back to life." He shudders at the memories – the screeching, the scuttling (_nothing should _move_ like that_), and the human shape curled up on the ground, making him feel that somehow he's done something terrible – they're _monsters_, he has no choice.

Jack frowns slightly. "You brought a gun and ammo? Did you know that you were going to be attacked, then?"

"What? No. No, I just... found them." It seems so strange, now that he thinks about it.

"You found them?" Jack repeats, skeptical.

"The gun was in a building – the Woodside Apartments," he says, a little defensively. "The bullets are just lying around everywhere." He looks around, expecting anything in this town, and sure enough there's a box of bullets impaled on an ornamental spike. He picks it up. Jack looks a little more convinced, and James feels oddly proud of himself. "I've picked up some shotgun bullets as well."

"But you don't have a shotgun."

There is a long pause.

"I... thought I might find one later." It makes no sense, James realises, even as he is speaking. But he was picking up boxes of handgun bullets before he found the handgun. Why should the shotgun be any different?

Jack is silent for a moment, looking at the bullets, and then he turns to look out into the fog. "How long have you been here for?"

James pauses for thought. Night hasn't fallen, as far as he knows, but it is dark in the apartments, and there are no windows. It feels as if he's been here for ever, the photograph of Mary in his pocket the only thing that ties him to another time, a happier time.

"...I don't know."

He _isn't_ insane. He doesn't think that he's insane.

If Jack is surprised by his answer, he doesn't show it. "How long were you planning on staying here?"

That, at least, is easy to answer. "Until I find Mary."

Jack hesitates, but only for a second. "What if you don't find her?"

James doesn't know how to answer that.

_I'll go home. I'll find her somehow. I'll die. I'll stay here for ever, walking through these streets in circles and searching for someone who died._

Something touches him on the shoulder, and he starts and turns, already raising the handgun. There wasn't any static, and that makes it worse so much worse because there's only _one_ thing in this town that doesn't set off the radio and the gun does _nothing_ to it, nothing does _anything_ to it and it just _stands_ there, flesh and metal and the knife that could split a man in two and -

- but it's Jack, just Jack. He'd almost forgotten that he was there. He'd forgotten that people touch each other for comfort. He remembers finding out that Mary was going to die, how he'd - he'd wanted to -

It isn't important.

To comfort each other. People touch other people in order to comfort _them_, not just themselves. Because that would be selfish, that would be wrong.

Jack's got his hands in the air and an eyebrow raised, and it takes James a moment to realise that he's still pointing the gun at him. He lowers it with a muttered apology.

"Sorry if I startled you," Jack says, laughing, lowering his hands. "Wish it'd been that easy the other times I've had guns aimed at me." He tilts his head slightly, looking appraisingly at the handgun. "Nice little model, by the way. Very quaint."

"...thanks," James says after a pause, because he doesn't know what else to say. Jack's reaction isn't one he would have expected from someone who had just had a gun pointed at them – does he even realise how close he came to shooting? – but after his encounter with Angela, it's a relief to find someone who seems mostly capable of rational behaviour, rational thought. Someone – besides himself – who is sane.

Besides, it occurs to him after a moment's thought, it's no stranger than his own reaction to being touched.

He's been in this town for a long time. It feels like a long time, feels like forever. It makes sense for him to be jumpy. Jack should understand that.

Jack _has_ to understand that, because if he doesn't he might think that James is insane, and he _isn't_. He feels that he might go insane if he has to stay in this town for much longer, searching and searching for someone who isn't there (but she _is_ here, she _has_ to be), but for now he has his sanity, and he has to cling to that, because it and Mary are the only things keeping him alive.

He has a strange feeling that Mary – somehow – is guiding him. Showing him the paths to take, the places he needs to go. She _wants_ him to find out what that letter meant, and so he will. He will do anything for her.

"You look a little down." Jack's voice, breaking in on his thoughts. "I'd give you a hug, but I'm not so sure it'd be a good idea."

James, bewildered, stares at him for a moment before remembering. "I'm... sorry. About before."

"Don't worry about it. If I knew some monsters were trying to eat me, I'd have been startled too." Jack looks around. He seems better at seeing through the fog than James is, somehow – sometimes he'll alter his direction before a corner comes into view, or pause to read a sign that James can barely make out. "So, where are we headed?"

"The hotel."

"The Lakeview?" Jack frowns slightly, looking down at his wrist. There's something there, James sees – something like a watch, but larger, more complex. "It's on the other side of the lake. I can't see any way of getting across nearby." He glances up. "Do you know anywhere we might find a boat?" he asks, before noticing James' expression. "What's wrong?"

James has stopped, is staring at him. Now that he thinks about it, there has been no logic to his movements at all. He's been looking at his map and going down long streets that he _knows_ are dead-ends. He went into the apartment building simply because he found a key to it, searched through it, jumped across into the next building and searched that. What had he been expecting to find there? The Blue Creek Apartments couldn't have been the 'special place' Mary wrote about, so why did he go into them?

"James?"

There has to be a more logical way of doing things. There has to be. If he carries on like this, finding his way by instinct and the scribbled legacies of the dead, he might never find her.

"James?"

But it's been _working_ so far, hasn't it? He can't explain what compelled him to go down that dead-ended street, but that was where he found the key to the Woodside Apartments. He had no real reason to go into the apartments, but by crossing the fire escape into Blue Creek he's been able to make his way here, to Jack and Rosewater Park. Perhaps he should carry on, then, if inexplicable impulses and the keys that fall into his hands have got him this far.

So he asks, "Where do you think we should go?"

Jack pauses, thinking, and then smiles slowly. "I heard there was a strip bar around here..."

James freezes, and swallows, and tries not to think about strip bars, although he isn't sure why. "There's nobody here, you know. Well," he corrects himself. "There are a few people. But I don't think there'll be anyone there."

Jack laughs. "Yeah, I know. But we may as well check it out. I've got a key, after all." He claps James on the shoulder. "May have alcohol. You need something to take your mind off things."

Another key, James thinks. And there are no other clues. "Okay." It doesn't occur to him to wonder where Jack got the key from.

-

Heaven's Night is a dirty little establishment halfway down a nearby alleyway. Jack asks James to look away and, perplexed, he does so; but as he turns he catches sight of Jack taking something out of his pocket. It looks like a _gun_, but that can't be right, because a second later the door swings open.

Thinking that a key is a weapon... is that insanity? Paranoia? Maybe it's a side-effect of being in so much danger for God knows how long.

He doesn't have time to think about it, though, because Jack is holding open the door, smiling, inviting him inside.

The inside of the building is like any other place here – dark, filthy, broken furniture and shattered glass. James is surprised that the neon sign up on the wall, _Heaven's Night_ and a reclining woman, is still working.

Filthy and abandoned. Just like everywhere else.

How did this town change so _much_ since he and Mary came here?

Jack is standing at the bar, gesturing, engaged in an elaborate pretence of arguing with an invisible bartender over the price of drinks. After the discussion concludes with Jack rattling off a list of currencies that James has never heard of at astonishing speed, he vaults over the counter and rapidly retrieves two dirt-encrusted bottles from behind it. Grinning, he sweeps the shattered glass off one of the tables and sets the bottles down, and James has the strange feeling that Jack has drunk in places even less attractive than this.

The taste of the alcohol makes him shudder involuntarily at first, but it is warming and calming, and for almost the first time since entering the town James can let himself relax a little, can stop listening for the telltale sound of his radio, can forget to be paralysed with fear by the slightest noise.

But he is still thinking about Mary. He will not let himself forget her.

Jack is much more relaxed beside him, rocking back on his chair, his feet up on the table, the gleam of polished leather incongruous against the accumulated filth of years. James isn't sure when Jack put his arm around his shoulders, but there it is. The warmth and heaviness is comforting, somehow; it makes him feel more secure. He needs security.

Jack takes another drink, nods towards the pole on the stage. "Want me to entertain you?" he asks, and James can _hear_ the smirk in his voice.

He sits there, staring fixedly at the bottle, and doesn't reply.

There is a pause.

"How long ago did she die?" Jack asks, serious now.

It takes a moment for James to register that he has been asked a question. "...Three years ago."

"Three years?" Jack asks, startled. He frowns. "Wouldn't she have got in contact earlier if she – I'm sorry, I mean – I don't mean – "

"I don't know what's going on," James says quietly, his eyes still on the table.

A brief silence.

"Could I see the letter?"

"No, sorry. I... lost it." It's not true, and he isn't sure why he says it, but he _knows_, somehow, that Jack cannot be allowed to see the letter. It's not that he doesn't trust Jack. He _does_ trust him. He thinks he trusts him. But he feels that if Jack sees the letter, all his hope of finding Mary will be taken from him.

"You lost it?" Jack repeats after a moment's pause.

Even though it _wasn't_ true, the slight hint of skepticism in Jack's voice makes James bristle. He _isn't_ a liar. Sometimes he might say things that aren't entirely true, but only when he _has _to. He's told Jack about Mary, and her letter, and her death. Those are the important things, the things he would _never_ lie about. Why won't he trust him?

"Yes," he says, and either Jack can sense something in his voice or James has involuntarily tightened the muscles across his back, because the arm is withdrawn from around his shoulders and he is alone again.

He shouldn't be doing this. Shouldn't be sitting here, sitting in an abandoned strip bar and drinking with a near-total stranger. Should be looking for Mary, but when he voices the thought Jack asks where he thinks they should go, and he doesn't know the answer.

The alcohol is warming, but James can still feel the chill of the air and of his memories seeping through his jacket. When he asks for more, Jack – who has somehow managed to polish off twice as much as him already – leaps to his feet and walks with a kind of determined, focused steadiness over to the bar. A second later comes the sound of breaking glass.

Jack glances down at the remains of the bottle, then looks back up with a slightly sheepish grin. "Sorry about that."

James stares at the broken glass, the dark liquid soaking into the dirt. "No, it's – it doesn't matter." After a moment he realises that he is thinking about picking up the shards, about clenching his hands around them until they bite into the palms, and he looks away and tries to suppress the images.

Is that how the people in this town, the corpses – is that how they died? Wandering around alone, until eventually they went mad and sought out pain, because they needed _something_ to cling to, something concrete – because they were tired of feeling nothing but hopelessness and loneliness and fear –

But that's not going to happen to him.

It's not going to happen to him, because he still has hope. He has Mary's letter in his mind and her photograph in his pocket, and they are all he needs.

It's not going to happen to him, because he isn't alone.

Jack makes as if to clear up the broken bottle, and then remembers where they are and turns towards the bar again instead. "D'you still want that drink?"

The chair scrapes beneath him, and James is standing up before he is aware of consciously having decided to do so, both hands on the table to steady himself. There are shards of glass digging into the heels of his hands, but he ignores them. Just happening to set your hands down on broken glass is _different_, he tells himself. He hadn't meant to. It's not the same.

Jack has paused at the noise, turned back. James raises his head to look into his eyes.

"I'm not going to die here."

Jack looks at him levelly, seriously, and alcohol wins out over tact. "What if you find out that Mary _is_ dead?"

James stares at him, confusion flickering in his eyes. "Mary..." he repeats, slowly.

Something is scrawled on the wall behind Jack. He hadn't noticed it before.

_If you REALLY want to see Mary..._

"I – I don't know..."

He's never thought about it before. He's always been so sure that he would _never_ commit suicide. It hasn't even occurred to him, not even here. Not even wandering through water-damaged, claustrophobic corridors and feeling that he would do _anything_ to get out of them. Not even when he hid behind the slatted door from that pyramid thing and – forgot to turn his flashlight off. Not even those hours he spent sitting in a darkened apartment and staring at the knife that Angela left behind.

It's not something that he would ever consider. Killing a human being – it's always wrong, no matter what. Even killing yourself. Even if a person _wants_ to die.

But maybe – he's never thought about it before – if Mary _is_ dead, if that last shred of hope _is_ taken from him, then maybe –

The implications of it are enough to make him reel. He _does_ reel – letting go of the table edge involuntarily, taking a few stumbling steps backward, falling –

– and he will never understand how he manages it even with reflexes dulled by the alcohol, but somehow Jack is there and he has caught him. He helps him back upright, and it seems to James that his hands linger for perhaps a little longer than is necessary, but maybe it's just his sense of time that's going. Whatever it is, he is grateful for the human contact. He has been starved of touch for far too long.

Jack might be saying something, James thinks, but he cannot hear him over the racing of his own thoughts. He can _remember,_ now. He can remember coming to visit Mary in hospital, and he remembers the pity and sorrow of seeing her plight, but there was something else as well, below wanting to comfort her with empty promises that she would get better – a festering rage, dim and distant but always getting stronger. There were times when he wanted to grab her and shout at her, _How could you **do** this to me?_, coming to bring her flowers and having her scream and spit at him in return, three years of dreading the news of her death and simultaneously guiltily hoping for the day when he would no longer be tied down to a dying woman. There were times when, mad with frustration, he wanted to leap on her and force his tongue down her throat and rip the hospital gown from her diseased body, revenging himself for three years of suspense and agony and restraining himself for a wife who was going to die _anyway_. There were times when he wanted to seize the pillow from beneath her head and –

He stumbles backwards, broken glass crunching beneath his feet. In a moment Jack's hand is on his back again, holding him steady, and James whips around and kisses him violently on the mouth.

Jack seems taken aback for a moment, but then he responds eagerly enough, tightening his grip on the back of James' jacket and even slipping a hand up under his shirt – and that _infuriates_ James, because he isn't _doing_ this for Jack, dammit, this is for _him_, he wants to _hurt_ somebody.

A moment later Jack pulls away with a muffled noise of pain; and he moves back, away from James; and his hands are braced on his knees and his bottom lip is almost bitten through – but he is _laughing_, laughing and breathless as his blood spatters the floor.

This isn't _right_. James needs to feel something from this – he needs to feel that he's _betrayed_ someone. He needs Jack to stare at him, hurt not just physically but _mentally_, and ask _Why?_. He needs Jack to get _angry_, to threaten him or throw him to the floor or kill him. He needs to feel guilt or pain, because if he doesn't feel it now then he will do this again and again, and Jack will cover up his injuries with laughter and Mary will be forgotten and James will hate himself but he will never never never be able to stop.

Jack is frowning slightly now, but it is out of concern, not pain. "James?"

James kisses him again, desperately, forcing him back against the wall, and Jack does not resist.


End file.
